Case study 3
Product validation
Arup
The hardest recommendation a designer can make is to stop. Not to iterate, not to pivot, not to simplify. To stop entirely. This case study is about making that recommendation, building the evidence to support it and navigating a stakeholder who did not want to hear it.
Role
Product Designer
Team
Product Manager, Business Analyst, Technical Lead, Engineers
Timeline
May 2022 – Jun 2022
A visual mapping and analysis tool had been in development at Arup to help design managers in the built environment analyse connections between design considerations, strategic drivers and project outcomes. The second version had accumulated significant issues around stability, scalability and usability. The team faced a decision. Release a third version with new features or stop further development entirely.
The Product Manager responsible for the tool was an engineer who had worked directly with the mapping and outcome analysis methodology the tool was built to support. That practitioner experience made the PM a genuine subject matter expert for the research. The PM believed in the product and wanted to take it to the next version.
Starting with the full picture
Before a single concept, a map of everything the PM envisioned.
I began with process mapping to understand the full workflow the Product Manager had in mind. Her vision extended beyond what the existing product covered. Understanding the complete methodology she wanted to support digitally was the foundation for everything that followed.
Current state user flow
Research and competitive analysis
The market had moved. The product had not.
Competitive analysis came next. Miro and Mural had advanced significantly during the COVID period and were already solving the core jobs the tool was trying to do, with greater capability and far less friction.
At this point I had a strong sense the product was not viable. A recommendation without user evidence is an opinion, not a finding. I initiated user research. The Product Manager was new to the practice of speaking to users and did not initially see its value. I made the case and she agreed.
I did not conduct the sessions and report back. I brought her in directly so she could hear from users firsthand. Design managers in the built environment were not engaging with the tool rigorously. It was not meeting their needs.
The difficult conversation
PM was adamant. I did not back down.
When I shared the finding that further development was not feasible, the Product Manager disagreed. The PM was adamant about continuing. I did not back down but I also did not force a confrontation.
I changed my approach instead. I brought another Product Manager into subsequent conversations for an additional product perspective. I held a separate session with the technical lead and engineering team for feasibility and effort review. And I agreed to produce high-level concepts and user flows — not as a proposed solution but to give the engineers enough detail to produce accurate effort estimates.
Future state user flow
The presentation
The numbers did the work a recommendation alone could not.
I brought everyone into a single session. The Product Manager, the second Product Manager, the technical lead and the engineering team. I presented the full picture. The process map, the competitive landscape, the user research findings, the high-level design concepts and the JBTD user flows.
The engineering team provided effort estimates. It was the first time the Product Manager heard those numbers with the full team present. The engineers independently confirmed the assessment. Too much technical debt. Existing tools already doing the jobs end to end.
The Product Manager took time to come to terms with the reality. The business decided not to allocate further budget. No next version was built.
High-level concept designs
Outcome
The most useful thing I produced was a recommendation to stop.
The existing product was eventually discontinued. The research, the competitive analysis and the engineering estimates together made a case that could not be dismissed. Significant investment had already gone into the product. The engineering estimate for the next round was substantial. The recommendation saved the organisation from compounding that investment in a space it could not win.
This was one of the first times I told a senior stakeholder that a product should not go forward. I now treat stopping as a legitimate outcome of a design process, not a failure.
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